DiyLightAnimation

Fun => The Porch => Topic started by: deweycooter on January 26, 2012,

Title: Anyone following Udacity.com?
Post by: deweycooter on January 26, 2012,

There are a couple free online classes being started Feb 20 that might interest some of the hard-core nerds on here.  Udacity.com (http://www.udacitycom) is a startup, somewhat of a followup to the Artificial Intelligence class that was offered for free last fall (http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/11/23/2159216/stanfords-free-computer-science-courses) from Stanford - over 100k enrolled, and 23k finished the course.

Udacity is offering two free courses in February:
CS101: Building a Search Engine  -  This class will give you an introduction to computing. In seven weeks, you will build your own search engine complete with a web crawler and way of ranking popular pages. You will understand some of the key concepts in computer science, and learn how to write your own computer programs. No previous background in programming is expected.

CS373: Programming a Robotic Car  -  This class, taught by one of the foremost experts in AI, will teach you basic methods in Artificial Intelligence, including: probabilistic inference, computer vision, machine learning, and planning, all with a focus on robotics. Extensive programming examples and assignments will apply these methods in the context of building self-driving cars. You will get a chance to visit, via video, the leading research labs in the field, and meet the scientists and engineers who are building self-driving cars at Stanford and Google.

I really think that the next step for our light shows (and Halloween props?) is interactivity with the audience.  Plus, the whole Google self-driving car concept is just too freakin cool.  I've signed up for the 2nd course.  Anyone else interested?

Title: Re: Anyone following Udacity.com?
Post by: Steve Gase on January 26, 2012,

Thanks for passing this info along!

Title: Re: Anyone following Udacity.com?
Post by: scharbon on January 26, 2012,

I am in.  At work we were just talking about a way to make some stuff we do easier.  Building a webcralwer and linking it to some text mining applications was one of our tentative solutions.  Since I don't know how to do either of these I thought it was a bridge too far.  Now it is a bridge only half too far!!!  :)

Thanks for the notice.

Steve

Title: Re: Anyone following Udacity.com?
Post by: deweycooter on February 14, 2012,

MIT has a free online class on Circuits and Electronics (https://6002x.mitx.mit.edu/) starting Mar 5 and running through June 8.  Prerequisites include physics, basic calculus, linear algebra and some differential equations.  This hits a bit closer to home (DLA) than the Udacity courses, thought I'd pass it along as well.

I think I'm going to try to tackle the Udacity AI class and this MIT course.  Any study buddies out there?

Title: Re: Anyone following Udacity.com?
Post by: Ron on February 14, 2012,

Thanks for sharing.

Ron